father would not hear of this alliance, and he thus
related the sequence: "After a painful struggle, I yielded to my
fate.... I sighed as a lover, I obeyed as a son."[145] From England he
wrote to Mademoiselle Curchod breaking off the engagement. Perhaps it is
because of feminine criticism that Cotter Morison indulges in an
elaborate defense of Gibbon, which indeed hardly seems necessary.
Rousseau, who was privy to the love affair, said that "Gibbon was too
cold-blooded a young man for his taste or for Mademoiselle Curchod's
happiness."[146] Mademoiselle Curchod a few years later married Necker,
a rich Paris banker, who under Louis XVI held the office of
director-general of the finances. She was the mother of Madame de Stael,
was a leader of the literary society in Paris and, despite the troublous
times, must have led a happy life. One delightful aspect of the story is
the warm friendship that existed between Madame Necker and Edward
Gibbon. This began less than a year after her marriage. "The Curchod
(Madame Necker) I saw at Paris," he wrote to his friend Holroyd. "She
was very fond of me and the husband particularly civil. Could they
insult me more cruelly? Ask me every evening to supper; go to bed, and
leave me alone with his wife--what an impertinent security!"[147]

If women read the Correspondence as they do the Autobiography, I think
that their aversion to the great historian would be increased by these
confiding words to his stepmother, written when he was forty-nine: "The
habits of female conversation have sometimes tempted me to acquire the
piece of furniture, a wife, and could I unite in a single Woman the
virtues and accomplishments of half a dozen of my acquaintance, I would
instantly pay my addresses to the Constellation."[148]

I have always been impressed with Gibbon's pride at being the author of
"six volumes in quartos"; but as nearly all histories now are published
in octavo, I had not a distinct idea of the appearance of a quarto
volume until the preparation of this essay led me to look at different
editions of Gibbon in the Boston Athenaeum. There I found the quartos,
the first volume of which is the third edition, published in 1777 [it
will be remembered that the original publication of the first volume was
in February, 1776]. The volume is 11 1/4 inches long by 9 inches wide and
is much heavier than our very heavy octavo volumes. With this volume in
my hand I could appreciate the remark of the Du